Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 40.djvu/402

386 The last fifteen minutes of each day were devoted to literature. Selections with biography and anecdote constituted the materials for these lessons. Advantage was taken of birthdays, anniversaries, and natural phenomena. Storms furnished accompaniments to Lowell's The First Snow-fall, portions of Whittier's Snowbound, Longfellow's Rainy Day, Bryant's Rain, Shelley's Cloud, etc. Flowers brought by the children were related to readings from Burns, Wordsworth, Emerson, Lowell, Bryant, Whittier, and Longfellow. Emerson's Rhodora was committed to memory and recited, a cluster of the purple blossoms being in sight. Selections were made with primary reference to their value. Biography was usually employed to heighten interest in literature; for its own sake when embodying noble sentiments—as Scott's struggle against debt, Sidney's gift of water to the soldier. By such tales of heroic effort and action it was hoped to develop courage, honor, and devotion to duty.

Aside from clear language in narration, accompanied by pictures of persons and places, and such reading as expresses the rhythm and meaning, no effort was made to have biography or selection understood. Many children have such an appreciation of melody that a fine poem well read will hold their attention. Just before Christmas, in our first year, I read a portion of Milton's Hymn on the Nativity, and said, "I hope you will some day read the whole, and like it." "Please read it all now," said several voices. So it was all read, and the children listened intently. Milton's picture was put away, and nothing said of him for a year. When his picture was again put on the easel, a hand was at once raised. "What is it, Tracy?" "I know who that is." "Who?" "Mr. John Milton." "What do you remember about him?" "He gave his eyes for liberty"—an expression which, so far as my knowledge of the child went, he had not heard from any one, but was his own terse summing up of the narrative he had heard a year before, when barely six years old. Most children have such an appreciation of justice and heroism that they will even walk more erectly after listening to a tale involving these qualities. I shall not forget how gravely and proudly fifty children withdrew from the school-room after listening to the story of Sidney's death. An unspoiled child has usually a vivid imagination; and it is as pernicious to meddle with the formation of his mental pictures in literature, as in science lessons to keep telling him what he can get from his specimens. The child's mind should be brought into direct contact with the realities in history and literature, and left to work at them with the least possible interference and guidance. If a child attempted to repeat a quotation or fact, accuracy was required, but he was not urged to remember. Much in the literature lessons was above the children's comprehension; but it was